You Have Filled Jerusalem with Your Teaching

Now the high priest came and those who were with him
and called together the council and all the senate of Israel, and
sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the officers
came, they did not find them in the prison, and they returned and
reported, "We found the prison securely locked and the sentries
standing at the doors, but when we opened it we found no one
inside." Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests
heard these words, they were much perplexed about them, wondering
what this would come to. And some one came and told them, "The men
whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the
people." Then the captain with the officers went and brought them,
but without violence, for they were afraid of being stoned by the
people. And when they had brought them, they set them before the
council. And the high priest questioned them, saying, "We strictly
charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled
Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to bring this man's
blood upon us." But Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey
God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus whom you
killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand
as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness
of sins. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy
Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him."

In order to understand the meaning of SPAN III and the building
of our new worship building, you have to see it as part of the
Christian movement throughout history and around the world. I want
to give you some glimpses of that movement in a moment, but first
let's get the most important facts on the table.

The Foundational Facts of Christianity

We'll take them from Peter's message here in Acts 5:30–31.

Fact #1

God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Verse 30: "The
God of our fathers raised Jesus whom you killed by hanging him on a
tree." The God who created the world—and called Abraham, Isaac, and
Israel to be his people—this ever-living God raised Jesus from the
dead.

Fact #2

God exalted Jesus to his right hand as Prince and
Savior. Verse 31: "God exalted him at his right hand as Leader [or
Prince] and Savior." God did not raise Jesus from the dead just to
die again. He raised him to reign and to save. He is alive to day.
He upholds the universe by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3). All
authority in heaven and earth has been given to him (Matthew 28:18).
He is building his church as he said he would (Matthew 16:18).

Fact #3

Jesus has authority to give repentance and forgiveness
of sins and he is giving them to men and women from all the
peoples. Verse 31b: "God exalted him at his right hand as Leader
and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins."
But not only to Israel—that was only the springboard to the
world. Acts 11:18 says the church glorified God saying, "Then to
the Gentiles [i.e., the peoples] also God has granted repentance
unto life."

Fact #1: God raised Jesus from the dead.

Fact #2: God exalted
Jesus to his right hand as Prince and Savior.

Fact #3: Jesus has
authority to give repentance and forgiveness of sins to whom he
will, and he is leading his church today in a worldwide movement,
gathering all of God's sheep into the fold of faith from every
people and tribe and tongue and nation (John 10:16; 11:52).

Now these are the foundational facts of the Christian movement,
of which that building and our efforts to pay for it with SPAN III
is a part. What that building stands for and what will happen in
that building are part of a movement in history and in the world
that is led by Jesus Christ today and cannot be defeated because
Jesus reigns omnipotently at the right hand of God and has his
authority in the world by virtue of an indestructible life.

Glimpses of the Global Christian Movement

Now, with the foundational facts on the table, let me give you
some glimpses of the Christian movement and what we are a part of
as we build our building for Christ and his kingdom.

CHINA

We are familiar with the story of the amazing growth of the
church during the oppression and persecution of the Maoist Cultural
Revolution that closed China to the outside world for 40 years.
Instead of crushing Christianity, one million Christians became 30 to 50 million.

What is new and not as widely known is what has happened since
Tiananmen Square in June 1989. During the Communist oppression
almost all of the church growth was among the poor, the peasants,
the under-educated. Millions of them. But after the massacre of
Tiananmen Square many of the intellectuals of the land were openly
disillusioned with the regime and the philosophy that could crush
unarmed students. Writing one year later one insider said,

We have reports of thousands of intellectuals turning to Christ.
In at least five university cities no less than ten percent of the
students have been reported as turning to Christianity. In a way
this is even more amazing than the revival during the Cultural
Revolution. For the revolution that was led by intellectuals is now
being deserted by those who made it. (From Herbert Schlossberg,
Called to Suffer, Called to Triumph, Multnomah Press, 1990, p.
26)

AFRICA

The continent was about 4% professing Christian in 1900 and is
about 40% today. There are approximately 16,000 to 20,000 new
Christians every day in Africa.

SOVIET UNION

After 70 years of atheistic repression, the Christian movement
is about 36% of the population—over one hundred million people,
five times the size of the Communist Party. And of course the
toppling of the Iron Curtain in the last two years has opened a
flood of Christian literature into these spiritually hungry lands.
Albania will be open soon (we pray). Mongolia and North Korea and
Cuba may not be far behind. Marxism is bankrupt spiritually and
economically.

INDONESIA

The percent of Christians is so high in this Muslim land that
the government won't print it—probably nearing 25%. "More Muslims
have become Christians in Indonesia, Bangladesh, Iran, and East
Africa in the last ten years than in the last ten centuries" (R.
Winter in Mission Frontiers, March, 1989).

KOREA

In 1900 Korea had no Protestant church; it was thought to be
"impossible to penetrate." Today Korea is 30% Christian with 4,000
churches in Seoul alone.

LATIN AMERICA

Evangelicals have grown from 300,000 in 1900 to 34 million in
1985 and will increase to 80 million by the year 2000 according to
recent trends. There are more evangelicals in Brazil than in the
whole of Europe, excluding the USSR. (Operation World, p. 65)

Mission Agencies

In the United States, 350 new mission agencies have been
established since 1950. More important is that about the same
number have been established by non-western churches and the
numbers of non-western missionaries is growing so fast that the
number will probably overtake the number of all western
missionaries some time in 1998. In 1988 there were about 35,000
non-western missionaries; by 2000 that number will probably reach
160,000 (Larry Pate, "The Dramatic Growth of Two-Thirds World
Missions," Bridging Peoples 8, July 1989, p. 4).
God has sent Chinese to reach Tibetans, Hondurans to reach North
African Muslims, Navajos to reach Laplanders, and other strategies
that we can't even mention.

We Are Not Big—The Christian Movement Is

Now the point is this. Bethlehem is not big. But the Christian
movement is big. Even when it is suffering and persecuted and
laughed at and beleaguered, it is big—because it is God's movement,
and his purpose is to fill the earth with the knowledge of the
glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14). And his
counsel shall stand and he will accomplish all his purpose (Isaiah
46:10).

What Jerusalem Was Filled With

When Peter and the apostles were arrested, Acts 5:28 says they
were charged like this: "We strictly charged you not to teach in
this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching."
Filled Jerusalem! Well that is step one. Jesus had said, "You will
be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to
the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). Now Jerusalem is full. It is
almost time to move on.

Jerusalem is full of teaching—the teaching that God raised
Jesus from the dead. And God exalted him to his right hand as
Prince over the world and as Savior. And this Jesus is now leading
a movement that spreads unstoppably where he wills because he
himself gives repentance and forgiveness of sins. That's what
Jerusalem is full of—full of the glory of the Lord Jesus—risen,
triumphant over death, exalted, Prince and Savior of the world. And
that is what the whole world will be full of—and that is the
meaning of SPAN I, SPAN II, and SPAN III. S. P. A. N.—Spreading
Praise to All Nations. Filling the earth with the glory of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.

Our Role in All This

We are not big. But we are part of something big. Something that
cannot fail. And when I think of that building and what I will give
to help pay for it, what I think of is the movement—not just our
little part in it, but the history-long, everlasting,
universe-filling Christian movement called the kingdom of God. The
undefeatable Christian movement. "I will build my church and the
gates of hell will not prevail against it."

That's what we are part of. It means that the new worship
building stands for filling the Twin Cities with our teaching. If
we are going to "spread praise to all
nations" with integrity, we
have to give ourselves at home to filling the Twin Cities with our
teaching. And I don't mean just little us. I mean with hundreds of
other Bible-believing churches. That's what the building stands
for—filling the Cities and filling the earth with our
teaching—the teaching of this text—that God raised Jesus from the
dead, that he is exalted to his right hand reigning as Prince and
Savior, and that he is leading a world-changing movement by giving
repentance and forgiveness of sins among all the nations.

How Can We Do This?

Well, how did they do it in Jerusalem—"you have filled
Jerusalem with your teaching"? Answer: they did it by radical
obedience to God. Verse 29: "Peter and the apostles said, 'We must
obey God rather than men.'"

But where does that kind of radical freedom come from? What
makes people able to risk jobs and reputation and life like this?
The answer is given in verse 32 where Peter explains where this
kind of radical obedience comes from. Verse 32: "We are witnesses
to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to
those who obey him." Literally: " . . . and so is the Holy Spirit
whom God gave [past tense] to those who are obeying him [present
tense]."

The point is that obedience is the evidence and sign that the
Holy Spirit has been given. So the answer to where radical
obedience comes from is: it comes from the power of the Holy
Spirit.

They filled Jerusalem with their teaching because in the face of
great danger they obeyed God and not man. They obeyed God and not
man because they had received the power of the Holy Spirit.

May God Give Us the Holy Spirit in Great Measure

My prayer for you and for my own family this week as we decide
what we will give to help pay for this new worship building is that
God will give us the Holy Spirit in great measure. Because the more
he fills us, the more radical will be our obedience and the more
quickly this city and this world will be filled with the glory of
the Lord.

One of our women told me this week that she had a dream about
our new worship building. She saw in her dream the two huge windows
on either side that lets the sun stream in and fill the room with
light. But instead of the light coming in, she saw in her dream a
building with light pouring out of the windows and filling the sky
and the city.

That's it. Keep that dream in your mind as you pray this
week.

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books.

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